Exploring News Content Complexity Using Network Analysis

• In Event: Advances in Content Analysis

Abstract

In this paper we explore how network analysis can be used to analyze the complexity of media coverage. By conceptualizing political coverage as a symbolic network representing a public sphere, we are able to adapt three useful indicators from network analysis to compare and evaluate the complexity of political news in different media outlets. Network density enables us to judge the general interconnectedness of the depicted debate, network centralization allows us to look at the focus on specific actors or issues, and network heterogeneity reflects the diversity within these actor and issue networks. Following a theoretical and methodological discussion of the applicability of these three indicators for evaluating news complexity, we demonstrate their usefulness in a case study comparing the political news coverage of tabloid and elite newspapers during a national election campaign.

Authors

• Carina Jacobi, U of Vienna

• Jakob-Moritz Eberl, U of Vienna

• Stephan Schlögl, U of Vienna

• Katharina Kleinen-von Knigslw, U of Vienna